Voters to decide on form of government

With the November elections coming up later this year, Plantation officials are making sure residents have a clear idea of what will be asked on their ballots.

For one of the questions, the city council is asking voters to decide between two forms of government — what the city currently has, or moving to a city-manager style of government.

In discussions on what would happen should voters pass a referendum this fall to change to a city manager form of government, city officials agreed to using a super majority of council members to hire or fire the potential city manager, plus the fire chief, police chief, city clerk, and city attorney.

A super majority means the council would have to have four agreeing members, instead of a normal majority of three, to hire or fire the five positions.

"I think we'll have a hard time hiring a quality city manager if we don't have that super majority in there," Council member Ron Jacobs said, should the voters want a city manager. "No one is going to want to come here and take the risk who is probably the caliber that we want to find."

Council member Jerry Fadgen, the lone no vote on the measure, doesn't like the use of super majority and thought it would give the council more control if only three members had to agree.

"We have a history of having stable government," Fadgen said. "If we have a rogue manager, chief, city clerk, or even city attorney, we have to be able to fire them with three people. I don't think we are going to have much of that going on, but a super majority is ridiculous."

Right now, Plantation uses a strong mayoral form of government, which means the mayor is an elected official, along with five council members, and has veto power over the council. The mayor also runs the day-to-day operations of the city and prepares the city's budget every year. Those tasks would fall to the city manager under a city-manager style of government.

Per council recommendation, should the voters choose to change, the city wouldn't transition to a city manager until November 2018 or March 2019, depending on another referendum question that will have voters choose between the two election times.

The change would eliminate the mayor's seat and make the position into a ceremonial function. The council would then elect council members to the mayor and vice mayor roles every year.

Under the current form of government, the mayor also has the ability to appoint department heads and high-ranking city officials, like the city attorney, with the council's approval. Should voters want a city manager, the city council would take over the hiring of not only the manager, but also the city attorney, city clerk, and the police and fire chiefs.

In Broward County, 30 of the 32 municipalities have some variation of a city-manager style of government. Only Plantation and Lighthouse Point have a form of strong mayoral government.